The B'nai Israel Day School Garden

﻿Our Children's Garden﻿The B'nai Israel Community Day School has an educational garden designed and run by professional biologists specifically for our children to learn through hands-on experience and play. Our Gardening and Science program serves as a unique and fun platform to:

Teach applied science and conceptual scientific principles

Improve health and teach lessons on food and nutrition

Teach a connection to our natural world and its biological cycles

Teach life lessons such as planning for tomorrow, teamwork, helping others, leadership, decision-making, social skills, self-understanding, responsibility, and emotional awareness

Cultivate a positive attitude towards education and a fondness for learning

Provide a calm safe place to recharge

Teach Jewish living, Jewish wisdom, and Jewish practice

Science and EducationThroughout the year, our children learn many things while playing in the garden and just being kids. We explore how different fruits and vegetables are connected to different seasons of the year. We learn about weather and life cycles. We save some seeds from the fruits of our harvest and plant them again the following year (and thus learn how the cycle begins all over again). Additionally, children take part in cooking and tasting new healthy culinary creations. And while cooking, we learn the difference between solids, liquids, and gasses as we start with ice cubes and then melt them into water, and then boil the water and watch the steam collect. Moreover, we explore concepts of wind power when we take pinwheels outside on a windy day and watch the wind move the pinwheel blades around and around. We also demonstrate wind power with balloon cars and balloon helicopters. We learn about the cycles of nature when our chickens eat, fertilize the soil, and eat again, and fertilize again, over and over. We learn that all natural elements and beings play a role in the interconnectedness of G-d’s great world as we watch the chickens till the soils, as we explore the water cycle, as we explore the transfer of energy, and as we see the symbiotic nature of our living world. We practice planning for the future because to grow a garden, we must plan which crops to grow throughout the season, plant them now, and wait to harvest them later. We practice teamwork and helping others. We also practice givingto others when we donate some of our overabundant crops to a group of the children's choosing. We enjoy nature walks around the B'nai Israel property and learn to identify basic native plants, birds, and animals. We practice breathing, counting, letters, and sounds too. We practice a love for all life and a responsibility to take care of it. We also practice problem-solving and critical thinking as we learn how to grow our own food and build garden projects such as bean teepees,wind chimes, and birdhouses. When it comes down to it, however, we really just have fun exploring, tasting, listening, touching, smelling, building, and PLAYING!

﻿Outdoor Spaces & Learning Centers﻿The B’nai Israel gardens are nested in 10 acres that include a ~5 acre natural area. Our outdoor spaces and gardens are designed as a place for people to come together and to enjoy each other. It is a place to learn scientific concepts and Jewish practice through play and hands-on experience. It is a place to grow, to develop a love for learning, to bond, to find a sense of wonder and inspiration, and to stretch out and feel the seasons. It is a place where our children can play, grow food, and gaze upon the same moon as our ancestors. It is a space designed to make Jewish living become even more real—every aspect of it! It is our place to become healthier, more connected to each other, and more connected to Jewish wisdom:

The wilderness is not just a desert through which we wandered for forty years. It is a way of being. A place that demands being honest with yourself without regard to the cost in personal anxiety. A place that demands being present with all of yourself. In the wilderness your possessions cannot surround you. Your preconceptions cannot protect you....You see the world as if for the first time. ~Rabbi Lawerence Kushner, Honey From the Rock

A Sensory Garden Our gardens are also year-round sensory gardens designed to have the elements of sight (bright flowers and fruits), taste (a variety of fruits and vegetables), touch (aloe plants and succulents), sound (firecracker plants, wildlife, chickens), and smell (our favorite is the citrus blossoms that bless us three times per year).